Sivut

Friday, January 27, 2012

A friend of mine got diagnosed with kidneystones today. She is extremely fit, lean, active and healthy. She does love her sweets though - she is the kind of girl that the normal girls (like me) envy - she can eat anything and not gain a gram.
Her doctor told her that the kidneystones are caused by excessive vitamin D - she takes her 5000IUD some times a week - and we do live above 60 deg latitude here. Ok, i have deep contempt for most doctors, so why should i be surprised? Im not. Im pissed. Because no blood was taken, no tests made, nobody knows her D(25)OH. And nobody cared to mention the number 1 cause of kidney stones - uric acid created by excess fructose in the diet.

"We documented 4902 incident kidney stones during a combined 48 years of
follow-up. The multivariate relative risks of kidney stones
significantly increased for participants in the highest compared to the
lowest quintile of total-fructose intake for all three study groups.
Free-fructose intake was also associated with increased risk.
Non-fructose carbohydrates were not associated with increased risk in
any cohort. Our study suggests that fructose intake is independently
associated with an increased risk of incident kidney stones."

This study was the first one performed on humans and they reported that the incidence of kidney stones in both men
and women was related to fructose consumption.

And kidney stones are the least of what may result from exess fructose consumption - heartdisease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes have been associated with elevated fructose consumption aswell.

ADDENDUM:

Vitamin D, Calcium and Kidney stones

I think i should also make it clear that a connection between vitamin D and kidney stones has been studied and dismissed in a Harvard study. They studied 45,616 men over 14 years for a total of 477,000
person-years of follow up. They found no increased risk of kidney stones
with vitamin D intake. They did find that the incidense of kidney stones can be related to low potassium, low magnesium, high refined carbohydrates, high sodas, and a high acid residue. Everything that can result from following a standard western diet. Today, humans live in a state of low-grade metabolic acidosis that leaches calcium from our bones, increases the amount of calcium in our urine, and causes kidney stones. However, at least two studies have linked kidney stones to latitude,
with an increasing incidence of stones at lower latitudes. One also
directly linked stones to sunlight. A Saudi Arabian study found kidney
stones were more common in the summer. We do know that kidney stone formation can be connected to dehydration - so wouldnt the logical connection be found there? Summer >>> dehydration?????
There is a very interesting connection between calcium and kidney stones as was found when scientists at Harvard decided to follow 92 731 women taking part in the Nurses Health Study in order to find out what affects the formation of kidney stones and what protects against it.They found that calcium from dairy products protected from them, but calcium from supplements increased the risk of developing the kidney stones. The nurses who consumed the most dietary calcium, primarily from dairy foods
such as milk, cheese and ice cream, were only 65 percent as likely to develop
kidney stones as the women who consumed the least dietary calcium.

At the same time, though, the nurses who took calcium supplements had a 20
percent greater risk of developing stones than women who didn't. The amount
of the supplements didn't seem to make any difference.

The other primary findings of the Nurses Health Study of kidney stones:

Women who consumed the most sugar had higher rates of forming
kidney stones than other women.

Those who consumed the most potassium
and fluid were less likely to develop kidney stones than others.

Meat consumption didn't seem to have any effect on risk of stones

What my logic makes of that:The calcium in dairy comes with fat and some vitamin D - therefore it is taken up into boneformation. The supplementedcalcium doesnt - so it will gather in soft tissues and also in your bloodvesses forming kidney stones and plaque. Also vitamins C has been investigated as possible causes for kidney stones, but such proposals have been refuted.

What is fructose, why is it so dangerous?

From a biochemical perspective, fructose is a monosaccharide that is unique among other sugars. The difference is in the chemical build of the molecule. glucose, another monosacharide, for example is an "aldose" whereas fructose is a "ketose". A small but a significant difference where your liver is concerned.
where does one get that fructose from?
Heres a list of fructose content%:

Every cell in your body, including your brain, is able to make use of glucose but that is not so with fructose. fructose is turned into triglycerides in the liver (by combining a glycerol backbone with 3 free fatty acids) which are then packed into VLDL (the truly harmful form of cholesteroltransporting proteins). The more glycerol you have, the more fat
you store.

The triglycerides created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat
in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin
resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin
resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.
Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate, as already explained,
fructose converts to activated glycerol (g-3-p),and the more glycerol you have, the more fat
you store.

When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is
stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being
stored as fat.

The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of
waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which
drives up blood pressure,causes gout and kidneydiseases.

Glucose suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin,
which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and
interferes with your brain's communication with leptin, resulting in
overeating.

Lets pick that apart, shall we

Fructose and fat storage

My readers all know that highcarb/lowfat diets tend to increase triglyceride levels and promote weightgain, but the process of lipogenesis (production of fat cells) doubles after consuming
fructose than after consuming glucose.

"...ingestion
of large quantities of fructose has profound metabolic consequences
because it bypasses the regulatory step catalyzed by
phosphofructokinase. This allows fructose to flood the pathways in the
liver, leading to enhanced fatty acid synthesis, increased
esterification of fatty acids, and increased VLDL secretion, which may
raise serum triacylglycerols and ultimately raise LDL cholesterol
concentrations."

Why does this all happen?

This is what happens when carbohydrate (glucose) enters the body: blood glucose goes up and the glut-4-pathway is activated: >> NPY neurons of your hypothalamus signal the pancreas to release insulin>> insulin
stimulates the release of
leptin>> leptin suppresses ghrelin. (all of that happens if your metabolism is not damaged and you are not insulinresistant - we are talking about healthy human metabolism here). As a result of this chain reaction your hunger is suppressed. A study done in 2008 shows that in comparison with glucose, fructose
did not stimulate insulin output like this. Fructose completely bypasses this system
and uses the glut-5 pathway - achieving a greatly downregulated insulin response. A blessing for the insuline resistan? Not so. It is only logical to think that the output of this chain reaction will be very different in case insulin-production is muted: ghrelin is not surpressed and you will continue feeling hungry.The fact is that
fructose also leads to insulin resistance and as many of you know,
insulin resistance has been found to lead to weight gain. Fructose has been used in laboratory studies to create insulin resistance in rats.

"Although fructose does not stimulate insulin secretion in the short term (41),
the insulin resistance and obesity induced by long-term fructose
feeding in experimental animals induces compensatory hyperinsulinemia.
Blakely et al (93) showed significant increases in fasting serum insulin and fasting serum glucose concentrations in rats that consumed 15%
of energy as fructose"

"Uric acid is strongly associated with cardiovascular and renal disease,
but is usually not considered to have a causal role. However, recent
experimental, epidemiological, and clinical studies provocatively
suggest that uric acid may contribute to the development of
hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and kidney disease in some patients.
Clinical studies are urgently needed to examine this important
possibility."

"In order for
fructose to be metabolized, the body has to create both fasted and fed
conditions. The liver is really busy when you eat a lot of fructose."

In this study, 24 rats were fed either a 63 percent glucose or
fructose diet four hours a day for two weeks; at the end of this period,
half the animals fasted for 24 hours before the scientists performed a
gene expression analysis; the other half were examined at the end of a
four-hour feeding.
Fructose feeding not only induced a broader range of genes than had
previously been identified, there were simultaneous increases in
glycogen (stored glucose) and triglycerides in the liver.

"To our surprise, a key regulatory enzyme involved in the breakdown
of glucose was about two times higher in the fructose-fed group than in
the glucose-fed group.
The study also suggests that a protein called carbohydrate response
element binding protein is responsible for the fructose effect on
certain genes that trigger the production of fat"

Fructose and gout

We have all heard the doctors say that gout is a lifestyle disease induces by overconsumption of meatproducts more abundant inthe diets of the well-off. If only it were so, your normal nutritionists with the lowfat/no red meat dogma should have cured the world of gout by now if that were so easy. It is true that uric acid is a breakdown product of the purines, adenine and guanine.
These compounds are found in relatively high amounts in meat, but the causes of gout are a bit more complex than that:

Gout is triggered by the presence of crystals of uric acid in your
joints. Many people with gout have high levels of
uric acid in their blood stream. But not all! Some people with gout do
not have high levels of uric acid in their blood.
Enter fructose: homo sapiens have no enzyme-system to
break down fructose polymers. The only sources of fructose we can use up to a limit
are the simple sugar in fruit or honey and as the molecule combined with
glucose as sucrose in table sugar. Drenching your body with
fructose is a recent novelty we havent simply had time to adapt to. What happens when you drench you metabolism with fructose? The first step in the fructose metabolism patway is conversion to fructose-1-phosphate. Drink a 1,5 litre of cola and you will get 100gm of fructose in your liver. This
will require a large input of phosphate to for the fructose-1-phosphate,
leaving very little for the generation of adenosine tri phosphate (ATP, the primary energy currency of our cells) to be made. A lack of ATP triggers
activity of the degradation system for adenine and the production of,
guess what, uric acid! Wellcome gout, and no steakeating fest was necessary.
Gout has been previously connected to fructose in older men but now also in younger women.

Fructose, inflammation and autoimmune disease

Fructose is the most potent reducing sugar in the human diet and if fructose makes its way into the body intact it
is capable of interacting with the amino acid chains of tissue
proteins. That reaction is known as glycation. Glycation of proteins can alter their function and change the structure
of proteins, which can cause them to be recognized by the immune system
as "foreign" thus inucing an autoimmune attack. Glycated proteins have been shown to be one of causes for
atherosclerosis and in the end-organ damage seen in diabetics. Fortunately, most of the fructose we eat is
converted to glucose in the intestinal wall or in the liver before it
reaches the blood-circulation. Consumption of very large amounts of fructose (large sodas, overindulging in fructosecontaining sweets, dried fruit etc) overwhelms the fructose-metabolizing capacity of the liver, resulting in the spillage of fructose
into the bloodstream.
In recent studies it has been confirmed that fructose consumption in the range of the SAD (standard american diet) induces inflammatory state in the vascular and endothelila cells and decreases intracellular ATP production.

Fructose and cardiovascular disease

Kimber Stanhope of the University of California says in this study that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010
suggest an upper limit of 25 percent or less of daily calories consumed
as added sugar. In this study, researchers examined 48 adults ages 18-40 and compared
the effects of consuming 25 percent of one's daily calorie requirement
as glucose or fructose on risk factors for
cardiovascular disease. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology &
Metabolism, found that within two weeks, study participants consuming
fructose or high-fructose corn syrup, but not glucose, exhibited
increased concentrations of low-density lipoprotein, "bad" cholesterol,
as well as triglycerides and apolipoprotein-B -- a protein that can lead
to plaques that cause vascular disease.

"Our findings demonstrate that several factors associated with an
elevated risk for cardiovascular disease were increased in individuals
consuming 25 percent of their calories as fructose or high fructose corn
syrup, but consumption of glucose did not have this effect," Stanhope
says.

Uric acid promotes gout, but also hypertension and
cardiovascular disease. Fructose consumption raises uric acid levels in the body and there are many
studies which show uric acid is linked to heart disease:

The association between uric acid and cardiovascular disease was largely
ignored until the mid-1950s and early 1960s, when it was rediscovered.2,3
Since then, a number of epidemiologic studies have reported a relation
between serum uric acid levels and a wide variety of cardiovascular
conditions, including hypertension,2 metabolic syndrome,4 coronary artery disease,5 cerebrovascular disease,6 vascular dementia,7 preeclampsia,8 and kidney disease.9,10
The relation between uric acid and cardiovascular disease is observed
not only with frank hyperuricemia (defined as more than 6 mg per
deciliter [360 μmol per liter] in women and more than 7 mg per deciliter
[420 μmol per liter] in men) but also with uric acid levels considered
to be in the normal to high range (>5.2 to 5.5 mg per deciliter [310
to 330 μmol per liter]).11-13

Fructose and erectile dysfunction

One of the many side-effects of fructose consumption is a massive decrease in nitric oxide production (as discussed above). Erectile problems stem from diminished nitric oxide (NO) production, poor blood pressure, hormones, low testosterone, or stress. Successful penile erection requires the relaxation of blood vessels
within the penis' tissue. This relaxation and resulting
engorgement of blood is triggered by a gaseous chemical our bodies
produce, called nitric oxide (NO). Overconsumption of fructose raises uric acid which significantly lowers the body`s ability to produce NO.

Fructose and ageing

Just in case you haven`t been convinced to stay away from the fruit juice by now, then
here is another reason. Fructose may be causing your body to
age faster through a process known as glycation.As mentioned earlier, fructose is the most reactive of all monosaccharides.
Glycation is a process where a sugar molecule binds itself to a protein molecule or
a lipid molecule. The resulting molecules are called Advance Glycation
Endproducts or AGEs for short. These AGEs are implicated in
diabetes, muscular degeneration, cataracts, and both weakening and
stiffening of collagen. Collagen is the stuff that keeps the skin supple and your blood vessels elastic. When your collagen hardens
and weakens, you start accumulating wrinkles and your blood pressure starts
to rise.
Your body is able to get rid of AGEs, through your kidneys and autophagy processes, but never as
fast as they are formed. The kidneys can be overloaded
by the AGE accumulation resulting in kidneys failure. This is a common problem with diabetics who often
have excessive AGEs due to excessive glucose in their blood.This study, published in the Journal of Nutrition already in 1998 concludes:

This study demonstrates that long-term fructose feeding accelerates
aging as expressed by changes in various age-related markers
measured in collagen from skin and bones. The focus
on collagen is warranted because collagen is present ubiquitously,
accounts
for as much as 30% of body proteins, mainly in the
extracellular matrix, and provides the basic functional properties of
most
vulnerable tissues such as renal basement membrane,
the cardiovascular system and retinal capillaries. In addition,
collagen
has a long half-life that allows the accumulation
of nutritional and age-related lesions. Glycation can affect both
biochemical,
mechanical and physiologic functioning of collagen.
The deleterious effects of glycation on collagen play a significant
role
in the pathogenesis of the aging process and the
late complications of diabetes (Paul and Bailey 1996).

Ok, i give up, if you werent convinced by now, go and continue with your fruitjuices, honey and agave nectar. Im tired now. Over and out.

Ok, ok just one more

Fructose and cancer

We in the paleocommunity are aware that glucose
is used in the cancercells for energy as they have disfunctioning
mitochondria and cant produce ATP as normal cells do. At the University of
California they made a study looking into cancercell proliferation and they published their findings in the Journal of Cancer Research:

I still adding weights/reps every time so i think ill stay another 4 weeks with this program. getting bored with a program is never my problem, and definately not the issue with this one either - im having a really good time with it actually.
Ive added windowwipers for abs and some cable rotations for the obliques. also i do a normal bb squat on massdays and gobletsquats on volumetraining days.

tell me about your workoutprograms guys, how often do you mix it up, or do you just go by your gutfeeling?

This post steps outside of the nutrition/excercise/biochem theme of this blog, but this is a matter so extremely important to me and close to my heart, that i have to share this with you guys. And i do hope, that even though you came here to read up on some nutrition question, you will not skip this post. This article was written by my stepdad, an ex nightbomber in the second WW. It breaks my heart that our government leads our newly freed country in a very cowardly way when it comes to giving honour where honour is due. These men will be all gone soon. This is all i can do for them - a little bit of publicity. Unbiased publicity is a rare commodity in this republic of ours.

WHY DID ESTONIANS FIGHT TOGETHER WITH THE
GERMANS?

Hendrik Arro

Every now and then, the question about Estonian soldiers
in the German armed forces during World War II arises. Were they Nazi
bandits or Estonian freedom fighters? In order to give an unbiased
reply to that question, one should know the events of the time as
well as the historical background. The following has been written as
a brief overview of the reasons why Estonians fought with the
Germans.

The great tragedy, World War II, was especially
tragic for the many small nations who were drawn into that clash of
major nations against their will. Often,
free will to decide on which side they wanted to be on was not
possible and whose side they ended up on depended on the political
and geographical situation.It was not rare
to find people from the same nation fighting in opposing armies.
This is exactly the case of the Estonians.The men who had been serving in the Estonian army
and had been transferred to the Red Army after the Soviet annexation,
as well as the men who were mobilised by the Soviet Union in Summer
1941, of which many perished in the forced labour camps1,
had to fight with the Soviets. The majority,
(70 to 80 per cent) of the (approximately) 100,000 Estonians fighting
in World War II fought with the Germans or the Finns2.Many times Estonians were accusingly asked, “Why
did you fight with the Germans while all the democratic nations were
against Nazi Germany?”In order to
understand this and the general situation of the Estonians, we first
must be acquainted with the historic background.

Friends and enemies

Before the war and even during the beginning of
World War II, pro-British sentiment prevailed in Estonia. The
reason for this was the fact that the British had
helped the Estonians in the Independence War and that relations
between Estonia and Great Britain from then on had been quite good.The author of this article, a schoolboy before the
war, remembers very well how most Estonians felt about the German
campaign against Poland and other small European nations in the
beginning of World War II.Estonians had
considered for centuries that Germans, especially the Baltic German
landlords were their main enemies and oppressors. Then there was the
German occupation in 1918 and the so-called Landeswehr War – where
German professional soldiers, financed by the Baltic German nobility,
fought against the Estonians in the Independence War in summer 1919 –
these conflicts did not engender any warm feelings towards the
Germans either.

So, why did public opinion change so rapidly in
favour of the Germans?It can be stated
with confidence that this profound change in public opinion was
caused directly by the Soviet Union and its actions.By
the late 1930s, events in the Soviet Union had created in many
people, a negative view of the Communist regime.This
view was strengthened by a rapid sequence of events in 1939 – the
violent establishment of Soviet military bases in the Baltic
countries, threatening these nations with raw force (the so-called
Bases Pact); a blow against Poland from behind while they were
fighting with the Germans; arrogant aggression against Finland; and a
few months later, the annexation of the hitherto independent Estonia
and other Baltic nations in the summer of 1940. Such actions clearly
demonstrated the violent and treacherous character of the Soviet
Union, and affected the opinion of most Estonians of it.

But, unfortunately, this was just the beginning.The reality turned out even worse than people had
feared.In 1940–1941, after Estonia had
been annexed to the Soviet Union, events – violence and terror on
citizens, arrests, and especially the mass deportations and the
hundreds of executed people found in mass graves discovered shortly
after the Soviets had been driven out – quickly made it clear to
most Estonians that the gravest threat to the existence of the
Estonian people was Russian communism3.

The hope that British and French help in
maintaining the independence of the Estonian nation and republic
would be forthcoming, had collapsed.Moreover,
both these nations as well as the US, became friends of the Soviet
Union during World War II. So most Estonians could not do anything
other than see Germany as the only ally worth considering against the
threat of death coming from the east. The severity of the situation
forced the age-old hatred into the background.

The summer of 1941 saw the beginning of the
massive partisan movement, called the Forest Brethren (metsavennad)
against the Russians (for the average Estonian, the Soviet Union
still meant more or less the same as the Communist Russia4).The majority of Estonians realised that one must
fight against the Communist regime of Russia by any and all means.This was a forced war, which was fought, not for
conquering new land or subduing other nations, but for defending
one’s own homeland.Those Estonians who
fought in the so-called “destroyer battalions” which were putting
into effect the Stalinist policy of scorched earth, were considered
as traitors by most Estonians, as they were
fighting not against the Germans, but against their own people.

Brothers in arms – yes, but not friends

After the arrival of the Germans, who were first
accepted as friends and liberators, thousands of Estonian volunteers
joined the German armed forces. Estonian units were formed in order
to start defending their homeland against the Stalinist Russia and to
avenge the sufferings and injustice done to the Estonian people.They hoped, naively, that the Germans would agree
to restore the Republic of Estonia, after which – very probably –
the Estonians would have then joined Germans as willing allies in the
fight against the Soviet Union.Unfortunately,
the German authorities did not use this enthusiasm well, though
restoring the national independence of Estonia would have made
Estonians allies to be trusted.On the
contrary – their actions, though better than the Soviet terror
against the Estonians, were still the actions of occupiers and very
soon Germans lost most of the trust and friendship of Estonians.In the beginning, the Germans attempted to hinder
the formation of Estonian units, in order to prevent the emergence of
Estonian armed forces.Even when the German
authorities finally discovered the necessity of such units, the
Estonian units were kept as small as possible, diffused and under the
command of German staff.The Germans did
not want to hear anything about independent Estonian armed forces,
even when dire necessity made them mobilise tens of thousands of
Estonians.

In spite of all this – though cursing the German
arrogance and irrational politics – the Estonians continued
fighting with the Germans against the Russians, led by the principle
that in crisis one can use the help of Beelzebub to exorcise the
Devil.Many hoped that the historical
situation of 1918 would repeat itself – both great nations which
had been occupying Estonia, Russia and Germany, would exhaust one
another in the war, perhaps giving rise to the restoration of
Estonian independence. It was very
important that no Russian troops remained on Estonian soil when
action ceased.Estonian independence was
the aim for which one could fight, attempting to keeping the Soviets
from the Estonian border and preventing them from re-occupying
Estonia.

The intensity of people's hatred and the
indignation of most Estonians, which was induced by the action of the
Communists, and how important the fight against the Soviet Union was
considered to be can be estimated, for instance, by the fact that
even though the Germans turned out to be occupiers of Estonia, there
was practically no anti-German partisan movement during the German
occupation in Estonia (1941–1944).Though
the Soviets left Communist functionaries behind to organise partisan
action on their retreat, they were quickly exposed by the locals;
also the partisan groups sent from the Soviet Union into Estonia, not
gaining support from the people, were liquidated rather quickly.There were some people who hid from the
mobilisation but their aim was purely personal safety.Active,
Forest Brethren partisan activity occurred in Estonia only in the
Soviet rear during the summer of 1941 and re-started in September
1944 after the Soviets re-occupied Estonia.It
should be also noted that a number of Estonians serving in the Soviet
Army defected to the Germans at the first chance.This
happened mostly in the summer of 1941 and the winter of 1942/43 (the
latter under Velikiye Luki).This was the
time when the Germans had not completely run out of luck, and there
appeared to be some reason in such defections.All
this shows that there was not only a small Nazi-minded group of
people who were fighting against Communist Russia, but most Estonians
supported the fighting.

Of course, most Estonians serving in the German
armed forces were mobilised in Estonia and therefore cannot be
described as volunteers.On the contrary,
people’s attitude towards the Germans was quite critical for the
most part (the action of the German authorities changed even the
minds of those people who had volunteered to join their troops).But it should be noted that evading the German
mobilisations was significantly less widespread than it had been in
the Summer of 1941 when thousands of men were evading the Soviet
mobilisation.On the contrary, even when
the situation on the front was rather bad and evading the
mobilisation – for personal safety – would have been
understandable, most of the men who received the notice for
mobilisation came to protect their homeland and fought as well as it
was possible in that situation.The
attitude of people was also in favour of the men serving in the
German army.It was because people simply
understood the necessity of fighting.

The legal basis of Estonians fighting

When talking about the fight against the Soviet
Union, it is appropriate to discuss its legal basis also.During both the Soviet and German occupations, the
Estonian legal authorities continued to operate, more or less
underground5.
Their orders and attitude formed the political and moral instructions
for Estonian citizens.Even though the
Germans denied the plea for restoration of independence by several
leading Estonian politicians, led by the prime minister J. Uluots,
the politicians still decided that the main enemy in the ongoing war
for Estonia and Estonians was the Soviet Union and they summoned the
Estonian people to mobilise all their internal efforts in fight
against communism.In February 1944, when
the Soviet troops had reached the Estonian borders, the Prime
Minister J. Uluots read a speech over the radio6.
During this speech he noted that the main presumption for the
restoration of Estonian freedom was to keep the Soviets out of
Estonia and in order to achieve this, he summoned Estonians to fight
with the Germans.The speech was published
in all Estonian newspapers.The National
Committee of the Republic of Estonia, which consisted of
representatives of Estonian political parties and was oriented mainly
towards the Western Allies, understood the graveness of the situation
and supported the idea of Estonian soldiers fighting with the
Germans7.Thus it can be said with certainty that the
representatives of Estonian legal authority saw Estonians fighting
against the Soviet Union with the Germans as the only possibility in
the given conditions.

No doubt that the standpoint of and the petitions
by the Estonian legal authorities had considerable effect on people
and many of those who had originally not wanted to fight with the
Germans, became protectors of the homeland.For
instance, during the mobilisation at the beginning of the February
1944, about 15,000 men were expected to appear but actually, nearly
40,000 men joined in to protect their homeland. (The number of people
who turned up was even greater, but not all of the men were
accepted.)The situation at the Front had
become very serious and it was obvious that everything possible had
to be done to prevent the return of the Russians.For
Estonians, the fight had turned into nationwide fight for freedom8.But the Germans were still afraid of forming
Estonian armed forces and so they are responsible for the fact that
the units formed out of the mobilised men (border guard units) were
not formed into a uniform Estonian unit (a Division), but were
dispersed and subordinated to German units.Further
– these men were not issued with suitable armament and equipment
for the conditions in which they were to fight.

If we try to assess the action of the Estonian
legal authorities and Estonians in World War II objectively, we must
consider the fact that Estonians were in a situation – against
their will – with no possibility of choosing between Western
democracy and Germany. The choice was between two major totalitarian
states, Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany.Estonians
liked neither. As a friend and ally of the Western democracies in
World War II, Russia, had occupied Estonia for a year before the
hostilities began. This introduction had been enough to prove to the
Estonians that the mortal enemy of the Estonian people was Communist
Russia, against whom you had to protect yourself by whatever means
available. It was this, that decided the
course of history.

Soviet Union and the Western nations

Many of the Western nations understood what
Communist Russia was and learned of Stalin’s crimes only many years
later (some have not understood it yet).Due
to wartime propaganda, the peoples of the West considered anybody who
had fought with the Germans as protectors of that criminal regime,
not asking what the purpose of that fighting had been.There
were no exceptions for this rule.But back
then, Russians were considered to be good allies. It
is a tragedy of history that the situation caused those Estonian men
who had wanted to protect their homeland against Communist Russia to
do it wearing German uniforms.Tens of
thousands of men participated in this fight and for them it was a
fight for their country and people, caused by historic inevitability.The legal authorities of Estonia sanctioned this
fight.It was clear to Estonian soldiers
that the prerequisite for defending Estonia and restoring its
national independence was to crush Communist Russia and in order to
achieve this aim, one had to fight, if necessary, outside of Estonia
as well.But whenever an Estonian soldier
fought, he carried the national colours, blue-black-white on his
sleeve and the aim of free Estonia in his heart.

The tragedy of a small nation is that the victors
of the World War II did not want to recognise this in the euphoria
following the victory.It was especially
bitter for the Estonians that even the US became an unconditional
ally of the Soviet Union. Many Estonians serving in the German army
had hoped that the US would understand the situation of the
Estonians.The Estonian prisoners-of-war
were often treated as ordinary, Nazi-minded volunteers fighting with
the Germans.(It took a long time before
the Americans started to understand that even though it was obvious
why the SS men did not want to return home, why were the ordinary
civilian refugees from the Soviet-held territories so unwilling to
return home?Something had to be wrong
there.)The events that happened
immediately after the war can be understood – ordinary Americans
tend not to have much empathy for other peoples.But
later, even now, here and there, all over the world, people have
tried to accuse Estonians who fought with the Germans, especially in
the Waffen-SS, of all imaginable sins.Especially
active in this sense have been the Communist authorities of post-war
Estonia and their followers and the global Jewish organisations.
The latter, especially, tend to think that the
fact that a lot of Estonians served in the 20th
(Estonian) Division of the Waffen-SS is enough to accuse all
Estonians, not asking what this unit actually was.

Estonians and the Waffen-SS

Firstly, it must be said that Estonians, for the
most part, joined the Waffen-SS – so much criticised by the Western
Allies and the Soviet Union – forcibly.Most
of the youngsters who had been mobilised in 1943 were transferred
there, as well as entire units in 1944.This
happened, for instance, with the Eastern Battalions, the Estonians
who had fought in Finland and had returned, and a number of others.Men were not asked for their opinion, although
they vocally criticised these transfers.(As
contemporaries remember, even the legendary commander of a Eastern
Battalion, Major Alfons Rebane, carrier of the Ritterkreutz, later
commander of a regiment of the Estonian Division, had not wanted his
battalion to be transferred to the Waffen-SS and had even threatened
to leave to Finland. But he understood the seriousness of the
situation and with his sense of responsibility for his homeland and
men he continued his service.)The Estonian
Legion and the 20th
(Estonian) Division of the Waffen-SS, which had been formed from it,
were purely combat units which members the International Court of
Nuremberg did not condemn as war criminals.For
Estonians, the Waffen-SS meant better armament and training in the
first place, essential for fighting against the Eastern enemy9.

Quite often, the Estonian soldiers who had escaped
to Germany in autumn 1944 and continued to fight there in spite of
the hopeless situation have been criticised too.It
was obvious that they had already lost their homeland and the defeat
of Germany was only a matter of time.These
criticisers accuse Estonian soldiers that their effort helped the
Germans to resist and commit additional war crimes and crimes against
humanity until the end of the war.But one
must remember that military service was the only alternative the
Germans offered to the Estonian soldiers arriving in Germany10.Unfortunately, these criticisers cannot suggest
any other alternative for what those men had to do other than
suggestions of surrender or even committing suicide (yes, this
extreme suggestion has been made).Indeed,
small groups of men would have tried to desert and to escape to the
West, but to develop the idea that this would have been possible for
entire units, especially on the Eastern Front, is sheer naivety.Russians certainly were not people whom an
Estonian soldier would have wanted to trust, considering the bitter
experiences of 1940–41.(The suggestion
that the entire 20th
Division of the Waffen-SS should have shot themselves cannot be taken
seriously.)

A brief discussion about crimes against humanity

As it has been not possible to accuse any Estonian
units, not even the 20th
(Estonian) Division of the Waffen-SS of crimes against humanity, the
most active criticisers of the Estonian soldiers in German service
have, every now and then, launched an accusatory campaign, as noted
above, stating that even though Estonian combat units were not
directly involved in war crimes, their fighting helped the Germans to
amongst other things commit crimes against humanity.Briefly,
they are accused of supporting Germans committing such crimes.But such a simplified approach allows us to accuse
soldiers of all forces in World War II.Following
the same logic, one can say that the soldiers of the Red Army,
including Estonians, can be accused in the murders of Katyn,
arresting and deporting tens or even hundreds of thousands of people
in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Caucasus etc.And
the list goes on.It would have been
impossible for the Stalinist regime to commit and hide those
atrocities from the world without the support of its armed forces.It could be said that the Allied soldiers who were
liberating some peoples from the Germans were, with the Soviet Union,
pushing others deeper and deeper under the Communist yoke and helped
to preserve the Gulag Archipelago and aided in the death of millions
of people in the Soviet prison camps many years after the war’s
end.But the Nuremburg court only discussed
the atrocities of Germany and her allies.The
victorious peoples were not judged, in spite what they had done.The Soviet Union demanded a number of issues
sensitive to the major nations to be dropped from the agenda of the
Nuremberg court; the other victorious nations agreed with pleasure.But it is totally obvious that it is sheer
nonsense to accuse men who had fought on this or other side, only by
what atrocities the entire respective fighting nations had committed,
for it does not lead anywhere.

Even if we drop the issue of helping to commit war
crimes and consider certain crimes against humanity, it can be said
with certainty that those were committed by the armed forces of all
fighting nations.But a discussion on these
must be based on their committers.And even
here the situation is not clear, as one must know the background of
one or other act that is now considered a crime.Speaking
about the atrocities of Estonians on the side of the Germans, one
should know that before the anti-tank trench at Tartu11
there were the Tartu Prison and a number of other places where the
remains of cruelly tortured and executed people were found in the
Summer and Autumn of 1941, after the retreat of the Soviet armed
forces.One should also recall the
deportation of women and children, the actions of the “destroyer
battalions” etc.But these accusers have
been silent on these points. We can be
completely sure that all this had a strong emotional impact, which
took men to war against the Russians as volunteers, but also set the
character of that war.The enemy really was
an enemy, in every sense of the word.

It should be noted that crimes against humanity in
Estonia continued even after the war, as the hostilities in fact
continued.The actions of the post-war
Forest Brethren who had been fighting with the Germans for the most
part and whom the Communists were referring to as Fascist
throat-cutters and accusing of many crimes, (though their action did
not differ much from that of the Soviet partisans against the
Germans, which were not considered as crimes) compare were closely to
the post-war crimes of the men who had fought in the Red Army
(arresting and torturing innocent people, deportations etc).Often such actions were carried out with the
willing or unwilling help of security agents, party activists etc.
who had been in the Soviet Army, being the main supporters of the
Soviet power in Estonia. (For the sake of truth, it must be said that
most of the men who had served in the Estonian Corps, did not
besmirch their honour with such atrocities.)

Speaking of the Forest Brethren, one needs to
remember that many men were forced into the forests by the actions of
the Soviet authorities, i.e. the actions of the same supporters who,
after the war, often persecuted people who did not like Soviet power
and the developments in Estonia, even if the men were not fighting
directly against it. These people often
could only choose between the option of to being sent to Siberia or
to go into the forest.This resulted in
thousands of abandoned households, broken families and tragic fates,
making many people who had perhaps already accepted the defeat and
started to live a normal life again, but now were forced to start an
active fight against the Soviets.Several
Soviet activists found their death at the hands of such men.Additionally, one should not forget that by the
end of the Forest Brethren movement, they were fighting a hopeless
and desperate fight of betrayed and doomed people.They
had put all their hope on the US that this democratic and powerful
nation would understand what an empire of evil the Soviet Union was
and would do something against it.This
hope was based on the American claim that they did not recognise the
Soviet annexation of the Baltic nations in 1940.But,
unfortunately, all this remained only words.The
Baltic nations were sold at Yalta, just as they had been sold by the
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It must be
understood that an embittered man, his vain hopes betrayed, is a
bitter fighter, whose only purpose is to sell his life as dearly as
possible.

But all this is a different topic.The
discussion above shows that as it is impossible to point at the Red
Army or any other armed force of any fighting nation as whole, it is
also impossible to call single units of the German armed forces, such
as the Estonian Legion or the 20th
(Estonian) Division of the Waffen-SS, criminals, especially when
there is no evidence of atrocities being committed by these units.

So, what did an Estonian soldier fight for?

In summary, it must be said that Estonian soldiers
in World War II were generally considered as good and brave soldiers.But the aim of this soldier, which he carried in
his heart during the fighting, was not a new Europe or Greater
Germany, it was only to free his little homeland12.
It is a historical tragedy that Estonia could not
fight against Communist Russia on the side of democratic Western
nations but with Nazi Germany and thus inadvertently became one of
the “bad boys”.The Western nations
have generally accepted the Finnish fight for their freedom against
the Soviet Union, especially because the Finns had to fight against
the Germans by the end of the war.The
Estonian fight was exactly the same, a fight for freedom, where the
Estonian soldier tried to give his best, using the resources he had
at the time.It was not the fault of the
Estonian soldier that he had no other choice of ally than Nazi
Germany and that he could not reach his aim nor defend his homeland
in the battle between the major nations. Even
though history has been rather biased so far, the former combatants
still believe that the younger generations, both in Estonia and
abroad, will see history with open minds one day, in spite of more
than fifty years of propaganda accusing the men who had served in the
German armed forces, and eventually understand by objectively
assessing the events that for an Estonian soldier the World War II
was just a continuation of the Independence War and nothing else.

1Estonians were not trusted. The Estonians who were mobilised
and taken to Russia were taken to the so-called labour battalions
where many perished from hunger and cold in the winter of 1941/42.Estonians in these labour battalions were, in reality,
prisoners. It was only in late 1942, when
it was evident that the Germans are running out of luck, that
Estonians were concentrated into the new Estonian Rifle Corps which
later saw action.

2Over 3000 Estonian volunteers (so-called “Finnish boys”,
soomepoisid) fought in the Finnish armed forces. They had not
wanted to fight for the Germans and escaped from Estonia to Finland.The largest Estonian unit in the Finnish armed forces was the
200th Infantry Regiment (JR 200).As
Finland was an Axis country and fought against the Soviets with
Germany, the people fighting with the Finns can be counted as
fighting on the German side as well.

3In 1940–1941 over 4000 peaceful citizens were arrested by
the Soviets in Estonia, violating all internationally accepted legal
norms. Most of them were murdered, or they died in prison camps.The terror culminated in the deportation of more than 10,000
people, including women and children, in June 1941.The question that faced Estonians was no longer about the
survival of democracy or the Republic, but the survival of the
Estonian nation itself.

4
Historicaly, Russians have been the only conquerors from the
east who have attempted to harass the Estonians. None of the other
nations making up the Soviet Union have attempted this.

5When the Soviet occupation troops arrived in June 1940, Jüri
Uluots, the Prime Minister of Estonia, succeeded in going
underground.After the Estonian president
Konstantin Päts was arrested in July 1940, the powers of the
president were transferred to the Prime Minister, as set out in the
constitution.The Western nations
recognised the continuity and legal succession of the underground
Estonian state authorities,.

7Order of the National Committee of the Republic of Estonia,
No. 1 of August 1, 1944 and No. 2 of August 24, 1944.

8About 1800 of the Estonians fighting with the Finns returned
to Estonia in August 1944 when the Russians had reached Tartu, in
order to do anything possible during this critical moment to protect
Estonia.

9All soldiers and officers who fought in the 20th
Division of the Waffen-SS were released from imprisonment in the
West after the Nuremberg court acquitted those former fighters of
the Waffen-SS who had been assigned there by authorities and had not
committed atrocities.In addition, the
letter from the Displaced Persons Commission to the Acting Consul
General of Estonia in New York, dated September 13, 1950 states that
the Baltic Waffen-SS units, including the Estonian Legion, were to
be considered as separate and distinct in purpose, ideology,
activities and qualifications for membership from the German SS, and
therefore the Commission held them not to be a movement hostile to
the Government of the United States.Therefore,
the cases of applicants for admission into the United States who
have been members of the Baltic Waffen-SS, including the Estonian
Legion, would be considered on their individual merit.

10Before the end of the war nearly all Estonian soldiers in
Germany were transferred to the 20th (Estonian) Division
of the Waffen-SS, in spite of their original arm of service.

11After the war, it became well known as the execution site for
people shot by the German occupation authorities.

12The number of Estonians who had been mobilised in the Soviet
armed forces from Estonia and who idealised the Communist empire
lead by Russia, was very small.Mostly
they ended up on the Soviet side because it had been impossible to
evade the mobilisation (see also Note 1).

Thursday, January 5, 2012

i just read an article in Scientific American on ageing and developments in creating an antiageing drug and thought id share my thoughts on it. i have an aversion and a great suspicion about concentrating scientific exploration around "curing" everything with drugs plus i have been interested in antiageing info for a while and have been following up on it as often as newer info pops up. i think its already common knowledge, at least in circles imbued in nutrition sciences, that calorie restriction is sofar the only and best way to extend human life. why it is so has been clearing up during the past ten years. the most interesting research has been concentrating on evolutionary theories (my favourite) about the so-called "two-faced" genes that express for cell proliferation and growth and are useful in childhood through to reproduction but after that their purpose kinda swiches - and they age you instead. the thing is, evolutionarily speaking, nature doesnt care how long we live, or what the "quality" of those later years are (our healthspan). evolution just needs us to reproduce. some years ago, due to a cancer in the family, i started to read up on cancer genetics (causes of cell proliferation) and stumbled upon Mikhail Blagosklonny`s research. strangely his article also popped up in the Scientific American article i just read. he talks about a protein mTOR and its effects on the growth of human cells and ageing. mTOR is a protein that is a product of a "two-faced" gene. its production increases when there's plenty of food around in the human system and through pathways that also trigger insulin and IGF (insulin like growth-factor), it prompts cell-proliferation and inhibits autophagy (recycling of dead and damaged cell-components and proteins). that is positive when you are still a growing organism. not so for an adult. too much mTOR can induce insulin resistance, cause unwanted cell growth and promote cellsenesence (a cell grows to abnormal proportions and becomes toxic to its neighbours). when food is scarce the scenario is reversed - mTOR is inhibited, cell growth slows, autophagy is vamped up - ageing slows as a result.

the article i read dismissed calorie restriction for humans as something that is hard to achieve for most mortals and concentrated on rapamycin - a promising new antiaging drug (a fungal inhibitor that has been used in cancer treatments due to its function in inhibiting growth of tumor cells) that works by inhibiting mTOR. the drug added a phenomenal 38 5 to female labmice life-expectancy (and 28% to the males`). the problem is its side effects - it is an immunosuppressant and therefore its longtime use could lead to toxicity. towards the end of the article the author suggests metformin ( a widely used diabetes drug) as a possible candidate for a miricle antiageing agent - as it also inhibits the mTOR pathway in humans.

it is all fine and dandy and definitely intriguing as hell. and just as annoying for me as a hard-boiled IF proponent. to just discard the one and proven way to slow the ageing process as unattainable for us mortals because of what.... we dont have enough willpower to stop gorging ourselves so we need a pill to fix everything. its the same with diabetes treatment - eat anything you want, just inject enough insulin. anybody thats suggests otherwise (as in dich the carbs) and dares to write about it might just get sued in this country (Finland). ofcourse the possibility of intermittent fasting to achieve the necessary 30% cut in calories to achieve the desired mTOR inhibiting effect has never been discussed. i doubt it has ever passed a scientists mind - or atleast the publication-bravery threshold. and different macronutrients effect on mTOR wasn't even mentioned in the article. for example, we know that a high protein diet has its activating effects on mTOR because the aminoacid leucine promotes the activation mTOR and therefore allows for increased protein synthesis in skeletal muscle (greatly desired by bodibuilders). leucine also promotes gluconeogenesis and aids in the retention of
lean mass in a fasted state (is that such a bad thing)?

what would happen to mTOR regulation and human ageing if a lowcarb diet (i advocate moderate protein) and IF would be combined? on one hand promoting mTOR to keep lean muscle mass and on the other ramping up autophagy during the fasting periods and adding to healthy longevity?? anybody here got funds to study that id greatly appreciate it.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

i stumbled upon this article today, again, its been all over facebook. but now it was quoted on a blog i like and respect and i read it. it was monstrous (both literally and figuratively speaking). it left a very miserable and anxiety inducing impression.

some months ago i wrote how i feel about the calorie is a calorie theory (i feel its nonsense of a highest grade). and this article shows how true that is. the story of a woman, Janice Bridge, in this article is such a horror story. I mean a woman maintains her 135 lbs weightloss (her current weight is still 195lbs) by measuring every gram she eats, counting every minute of exercise she does. a quote from the article:

She has decided to try to maintain this higher weight of 195, which
is still 135 pounds fewer than her heaviest weight.
“It doesn’t take a lot of variance from my current maintenance for me to
pop on another two or three pounds,” she says. “It’s been a real
struggle to stay at this weight, but it’s worth it, it’s good for me, it
makes me feel better. But my body would put on weight almost
instantaneously if I ever let up.”
So she never lets up. Since October 2006 she has weighed herself every
morning and recorded the result in a weight diary. She even carries a
scale with her when she travels. In the past six years, she made only
one exception to this routine: a two-week, no-weigh vacation in Hawaii.
She also weighs everything in the kitchen. She knows that lettuce is
about 5 calories a cup, while flour is about 400. If she goes out to
dinner, she conducts a Web search first to look at the menu and
calculate calories to help her decide what to order. She avoids anything
with sugar or white flour, which she calls her “gateway drugs” for
cravings and overeating. She has also found that drinking copious
amounts of water seems to help; she carries a 20-ounce water bottle and
fills it five times a day. She writes down everything she eats. At
night, she transfers all the information to an electronic record.

the woman is 66, she has had a lifetime full of dieting since she was 14. and when she adheres to the lowfat diet she was put on but didnt lose weight she was accused of cheating:

“No one would believe me that I was doing everything I was told,” she
says. “You can imagine how tremendously depressing it was and what a
feeling of rebellion and anger was building up.”

sounds familiar much??

i cant even begin to explain how bad i feel for this lady. she has endured this shit all her life. what for???

my feelings are so conflicting. a part of me sees my own mum in her (even though she has no weight issues - not really maybe a 10 lbs extra), im just a softy when it comes to older ladies. a part of me wants me to give her a swift kick in the arse and yell at her something along the lines of :" so calorie counting and lofat hasnt worked since you were 14... but you keep at it religiously??? what does that make you??? maybe you deserve the hell of caloriecounting you call life."

so ive been busy or actually lazy - depends on point of view i guess. all of my free time has been consumed by Steven Kings " The Stand" - a classic ive been rereading.

i noticed ive been stuck in a rut at the gym - not because of boredom, but because i was too much in love with my program - having too much fun to notice that the gains were definitely slowing down. so i got a grip and came up with a new program starting 01.01.2012:

its a 2 day split done twice a week - the first round it is a pure strength program with 4 x 6-8 and the second time around it will be a volumeworkout.

so for day 1 on the 02 of jan i did:
warmup for deadlifting: ham and glute raises 3 x 25 + hip thrusts with a 25 kg plate 3 x 15 with a 1/5/1 tempo